Being a full-time college student and often working full-time plus not living with my parents has made caffeine a very beneficial ingredient in my life, but that changed in 2003. I had always been told to stay away from caffeine when I had bladder or kidney infections and did. But what I didn’t know was how badly caffeine can affect a person’s body, especially a woman’s body. In the fall of 2003, I quickly found out that caffeine was something I needed to avoid. My breasts had been very sore and then I found a lump. Now at any age this is horrifying, but being only 19 years old I was down right terrified. I made an appointment to have a breast exam and while speaking with the nurse about the upcoming exam was told to cut out all caffeine, that the doctor who would be doing the exam would tell me that first thing, so it would be best to go ahead and cut the caffeine out. Well two weeks later when it was time for my exam my lump was gone.
The doctor told me that caffeine can cause cysts in your breasts and make them very sore. She had drunk caffeine her whole life and lived on coffee, leaving her breasts completely hard. When she told me this I knew I had to cut out the caffeine. Anyone who has tried this will admit that caffeine is a drug. When you cut caffeine out of your diet, you get bad headaches. But the benefits are huge. I was finally able to get a good night sleep. My breasts no longer ached constantly and the cyst was gone. But are there any other effects of caffeine that you should worry about? Yes, caffeine causes you to be dehydrated, can increase your heart rate, increases stomach acid (so if you have GERD, you really need to stay away from caffeine). The side effects of caffeine are numerous and way too involved for me to go into here.
But the scariest thing I found out, while watching the news is that if you drink caffeine before, or even worse while, you’re exercising you can cause yourself to have a heart attack. You can even overdose on caffeine. After reading several of the symptoms (restlessness, dizziness, stomach ache, etc) I realized that most of Americans are more than likely getting too much caffeine and going to the doctor thinking they are sick, when they are simply getting too much caffeine in their diets. The overdose effects can be as bad as anxiety attacks depending on the person and the dosage. If you love to drink coffee, pop, etc. try caffeine free. You may want to start substituting a couple drinks a day and slowly switch to all caffeine free products to avoid withdrawal. Please look at the ingredient labels on the products you drink.
Sometimes you may think something is caffeine free when it’s not and other times you may find you can drink things you thought you couldn’t. I was thrilled when I found out just a few months ago that I could still enjoy root beer. Of course to be even healthier you could stick with water.
